The club that no community in the world wants to belong to

Arthur moment’. The same will happen in Christchurch. Every time there is something like this in a mosque there will be commentary around what happened in Christchurch.’’

Heyward worries about the video recording made by the Christchurch accused and the effect that will have in future, because she saw first-hand the impact something similar had on Elizabeth’s late mother Nancy, who is buried alongside her at St Albans church.

‘‘There were some recordings of the Port Arthur shooting. I remember Nancy used to listen to a video and she knew which numbered shot killed Lizzie. It’s terrible and it will never go away.’’

Some still recoil at the sound of a helicopter, she says. ‘‘That’s what does it. There are staff at the site who still can’t deal with helicopters flying over the site because it brings back memories of that day.

‘‘Anyone can go to the memorial. It’s a beautifully designed native garden and reflection pond. It’s hard to do anything quickly afterwards in terms of a memorial. It can’t be a knee-jerk reaction. You need to let it settle and slowly, slowly see what sort of memorial you want.

‘‘Some of the community haven’t healed. Some have, and they move on. This is where it’s so difficult. Some people want to acknowledge the terrible event but want to just get up and on with the rest of their life. Others like to dwell on it.

‘‘People visiting Christchurch in five years’ time will think about what happened there, but not like the people who live there think about it.’’

‘A new normal’

It’s been less than five months since a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh and killed 11 worshippers and injured seven others in the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in United States history.

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers was leading the morning service on October 27 when the gunman opened fire.

‘‘We are adapting to what I call a new normal that is still being defined,’’ he says. ‘‘The continuous outpouring of love and support from around the world has been so very healing. Our healing can only go so far until we return to our true home in the Tree of Life, so the displacement is an impediment towards a full healing.

‘‘What makes Squirrel Hill so unique and special is that the love, care and concern expressed by all residents was present before October 27, 2018, and remains a stellar characteristic of this community.’’

Myers says the massacre in Christchurch has been one of the most disturbing events for his congregation to deal with. ‘‘I hope that you will learn that the entire world is made of good, decent, caring people, and that the actions of one person cannot be the sole defining characteristic of what it means to be a human being. Just as we continue to be enveloped in love, so too will you, and we share that love with you to let you know that together we will heal.’’

‘I don’t think we’ve learned anything’

Kamzy Gunaratnam swam 500 metres to avoid the bullets of Anders Breivik on July 22, 2011.

Breivik killed 77 people that day, of whom 69 had, like Gunaratnam, been attending the Labour Party summer camp on the island of Utøya, near Oslo, Norway.

Nearly eight years on and much of the world might think the massacre, born as it was of Rightwing extremism, would have forever altered the country’s political landscape, in a positive way.

Gunaratnam, now Oslo’s deputy mayor, says it hasn’t. If anything, things are now worse than they were before that day.

‘‘We were so united after the 22nd of July. All the political parties, everybody, came together. And that’s a good thing. The prime minister at the time was able to unite a whole nation, and not only those who sympathised with the Labour Party.

‘‘Everyone let their feelings out and we spoke freely about it.

‘‘But we didn’t really confront the idea behind the attack. And we’re still not confronting it, because the vast majority is talking about it as if it could have happened anywhere. But it didn’t happen anywhere.

‘‘It wasn’t a coincidence where the attack occurred. It was a targeting of the government building in the centre of Oslo and a summer camp for youth because they were the future of the Labour Party.

‘‘Just because police acknowledge Right-wing extremism as one of the biggest threats doesn’t mean people acknowledge and relate that to 22nd of July and remember it as an act of extremism.

‘‘I think the vast majority want to think of it as an attack, period. They talk about it as a ‘lone wolf’ event, not the Right-wing ideology that drove it. To call someone a ‘lone wolf’ with no evidence is just an excuse to not confront the larger issue,’’ Gunaratnam says.

‘‘You would think things would have improved in Norway after July 22, but it got worse . . .

‘‘For example, just a couple of months ago a former minister from the populist party called for the removal of child welfare for the third-born child in immigrant families. It was pure racism. He wanted to reduce the number of immigrant children being born. Even though he didn’t get the votes to do that, I don’t recall anyone saying ‘You can’t talk about people like this’. This is not uncommon.

‘‘To prevent it, you need a society with equal rights etc, you need the police to have the right powers of course, but most importantly you need politicians to realise they have a huge responsibility in how they talk about each other. We have people in important roles that speak of others in a way that is discriminating.’’

Gunaratnam says a temporary memorial has been constructed in Oslo and a permanent one will be built at some stage. One of the best things that had been done, she says, is the creation of the 22 July Centre, a museum/exhibition about the event, in Oslo.

‘‘To heal, I think it’s about trusting that this will never happen again. To believe that and to have that trust, I think you need to understand what happened and trust that everything is in its place to prevent it from happening again.

‘‘It’s a democracy. Just because July 22 happened, it doesn’t mean we got better as human beings. I don’t think Norwegian people are racist, but I think people are afraid. Afraid about the impact on the jobs and their future, and that translates into fear of other races,’’ she says.

‘‘I don’t think we’ve learned. Neither the politicians or the society. So I urge the people of New Zealand to take the debate on the hateful mindset of the terrorist. That’s the best advice I can give.’’